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The Winds Of Winter: George R.R. Martin Says Writing On Next GoT Book “Going Very Well Lately”If you take the events of the last few seasons of Game of Thrones at face value, the question “Who is the Night King?” seems easy to answer: He’s an evil ice demon leading his forces south to annihilate the residents of Westeros with icy magic, rotting zombies, and even an undead dragon. That’s pretty cut and dried.

But this is Game of Thrones, and in this complex fantasy world, explanations are rarely that simple. Who is the Night King, really–and what does he want? Why is he marching south? And is the Night King really evil?

Not Bran

Let’s get this out of the way: The Night King is not, as one popular theory posits, Bran. Bran is not the Night King, and the Night King is not Bran. It’s a stupid theory, and I would like to be done with it.

The entire purpose of the Three-Eyed Raven, which Bran has become, is to stop the Night King. If Bran was the Night King, why would the original TER have put so much effort into luring Bran into his cave and teaching him? If Bran is the Night King, his entire arc for the past seven previous seasons is completely meaningless and void.

That’s not to say Bran is a hero in this story, as we’ve been led to believe. Bran could wind up being on the wrong side of this ultimate conflict, with his detached nature and the Three-Eyed Raven’s dubious origins (the show made zero effort to explore the figure’s backstory, so we have no idea who he actually is). But that doesn’t mean he’s going to go back in time, be transformed by ice magic, do nothing for thousands of years, and become a completely different person.

And just in case you’re not convinced, Bran actor Isaac Hempstead-Wright shot it down personally, telling Radio Times the theory is too “obvious,” “cheesy,” and lacking in dramatic weight. So, yeah. Please stop with this.

Good or Bad?

Even once we accept that the Night King isn’t Bran, we still know practically nothing about the character. Clearly he’s a thinking, sentient being, and the White Walkers around him have a society and hierarchy all their own. They make armor and weapons, and they have their own culture and, presumably, language (we’ve never actually heard one speak).

So what is the Night King’s true purpose? The stories passed down by humanity suggest that the White Walkers are a force of evil who arrive with the Long Night to murder everyone they can. But why? What are their goals? Why are they so hell-bent on traveling south?

We learned during Bran’s scenes in Season 6 that the Children of the Forest created the White Walkers in the first place to help them defend against the First Men, who were cutting down their forests as they settled Westeros. The White Walkers turned on the Children, who then joined forces with the Men to drive them back to the far north. So the story goes, but that doesn’t really answer the question of “why.” Hopefully the show elaborates on the White Walkers’ background and goals more in Season 8, because if not, they’ll be the first truly boring bad guys on a show otherwise filled with great and complex villains.

Book Origins

There’s one other thing you need to understand about the Night King: He’s an invention of the show. In other words, there is no “Night King” in the books. There’s a “Night’s King,” who is actually completely different from the show’s Night King; while if the White Walkers have a leader in the books, we’ve yet to meet him.

It’s unclear whether the story of the Night’s King in the books will have any bearing on the show’s Night King, but it may be worth going over just in case.

In the books, the Night’s King is a figure from legend and myth who is said to have lived thousands of years before the series’ events. He was the 13th Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch (for reference, Jon Snow is the 998th Lord Commander, so yes, a lot of time has passed). Legend has it the Night’s King fell in love with a White Walker woman, took her as his bride, and ruled over one of the Watch’s castles (the Nightfort) as a rebel of sorts, until an alliance of Northerners and Wildlings defeated him.

Author George R.R. Martin actually addressed the relationship between the show’s Night King and the book’s Night’s King in a blog post in 2015: “As for the Night’s King (the form I prefer), in the books he is a legendary figure, akin to Lann the Clever and Brandon the Builder, and no more likely to have survived to the present day than they have.”

So yeah, according to Martin’s own words, the Night King is an invention of the show, as the book’s version is a figure from history who is no longer around in the present day. Whether the White Walkers in the books (or the “Others,” as they’re more commonly called) have a leader at all is something we might find out if George ever finishes the books.

And as for the Night King in the show? Hopefully we’ll know more about him by the end of Season 8.

Read Next: The Winds Of Winter: George R.R. Martin Says Writing On Next GoT Book “Going Very Well Lately”

Game of Thrones is finally back. Episode 1 aired tonight on HBO, and it served as a setup of sorts to dramatic events to come in the show’s eighth and final season. Now that the episode has ended, HBO has released a nice behind-the-scenes video where showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss break down the episode’s biggest moments and key scenes.

Obviously this video is stuffed with spoilers, so be sure to watch the episode first before checking out this breakdown. With that out of the way, here you go:

For lots more on Episode 1, you can check out GameSpot’s review of the episode here. You can also read the stories below to learn more about Game of Thrones and the first episode; we’ve put spoiler tags on two of them because even the titles might be spoiler-y:

Game of Thrones is approaching its end in Season 8, and some of the elements that have been in play since the beginning are finally starting to wrap up. Among those are Jon Snow’s parentage, the prophecy that Daenerys heard in her travels across the Narrow Sea, and other mystical things that look to be important to the final battle of the Night King.

One giant hanging thread is the question of the Prince That Was Promised, a longstanding prophecy about the hero who will appear to kill the Night King with the help of the Lord of Light. Also known as Azor Ahai, the question of who will fill the role of the Prince That Was Promised has been teased since Season 2 and the introduction of the Red Witch Melisandre and Stannis Baratheon. The premiere of Season 8 might have given a new hint as to who Azor Ahai is, and could be answering a question fans of both the show and the books on which they’re based have had for years.

It starts in Season 7, when Jon had a bonding moment with Drogon, touching the dragon and seemingly gaining his trust. In the Season 8 premiere, Jon actually rides Rhaegal, Daenerys’ other surviving dragon. It’s an extension of that moment Season 7, solidifying Jon’s bond with both Daenerys and the dragons. We saw in Season 7 what might be the reason for Drogon trusting Jon: he’s actually the son of Daenerys’ brother, Prince Rhaegar. He’s member of the royal family of dragon riders who consider themselves to be “blood of the dragon.” (It’s also worth noting that Rhaegal is named for Rhaegar, Jon’s father–a fact Jon will likely find very meaningful.)

Jon riding a dragon seemingly answers a question fans have been wondering about for years, thanks to a prophecy that doesn’t appear in the show, but is in George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” books on which Game of Thrones is based. In that book, Daenerys had a vision of Rhaegar when she was in the House of the Undying in Qarth, in which Rhaegar said his son Aegon was the Prince That Was Promised. He also told Daenerys “the dragon has three heads.” (In the show, Daenerys sees the Red Keep in ruins and the Iron Throne frozen, and is visited briefly by the ghosts of her husband Drogo and their baby, Rhaego.)

First off, we now know that Jon is, in fact, Rhaegar’s son Aegon. That might mean that he’s the returned Azor Ahai–the hero the red priests of the Lord of Light have been expecting to show up and defeat the Night King, using a flaming sword called Lightbringer.

The second part of the vision is still an open question, though, if the show is going to address it. Fans have interpreted “the dragon has three heads” to suggest there will be three key people who will ride Daenerys’ dragons–and maybe even three Targaryens. That tracks with the revelation that Jon is a Targaryen, and now seeing him riding a dragon.

The question is whether “the dragon has three heads” will actually be born out by the show now that the Night King has turned Daenerys’ third dragon, Viserion, into an undead wight. Fans have been expecting a third dragon rider, but now the third dragon rider is the Night King himself.

But there’s still room for another hidden Targaryen to appear. As fans have theorized who might be the third of the dragon’s three heads, a lot of speculation has fallen to Tyrion Lannister. There’s a rumor in Westeros that Tyrion isn’t really the son of Tywin Lannister, but that the Mad King Aerys Targaryen raped Tyrion’s mother, Joanna Lannister. That might be part of the reason why Tywin was so awful to Tyrion his whole life, and fulfill Daenerys’ vision. Tyrion also had his moment with the dragons under the pyramid of Meereen, which makes him one of the few people they seem cool with.

In any event, it seems the dragon has two heads, at least. And if Game of Thrones doesn’t address Rhaegar’s words through the rest of Season 8, it seems there might still be a few tidbits for fans of the novels to look forward to–if Martin ever finishes the series.

Things are looking pretty rough for House Lannister in Season 8 of Game of Thrones. Cersei might hold the Iron Throne, but it has cost her a great deal–all three of her children are dead, and she’s been at war for pretty much her entire reign. Through it all, though, she had her twin brother Jaime at her side.

That changed at the end of Season 7. After Jaime and Cersei met with Daenerys Targaryen and Tyrion, the Lannisters pledged to help with the war against the White Walkers. But once everyone had left King’s Landing, Cersei revealed that she planned to double-cross everybody else and leave them to get wiped out by the White Walkers. Jaime wasn’t happy about Cersei forcing him to break his promise, so at the end of the season, he struck off north alone, leaving his sister behind.

Cersei had already threatened Jaime about betraying her, and it’s well known that she hates her other brother, Tyrion. In the premiere of Season 8, we see how Cersei plans to deal with Jaime and Tyrion–she’s sending Bronn to kill both of them with a crossbow. Cersei likes to make a statement with her murders, though–which is why the weapon Qyburn gave to Bronn to use on the traitorous Lannisters is a significant one.

It’s the same crossbow Tyrion wielded way back in Season 4, and used to kill his father, Tywin Lannister. That was after Tyrion was tried and convicted of poisoning King Joffrey, and Tywin sentenced Tyrion to death, even though he was innocent. Jaime helped Tyrion escape, but before he did, Tyrion went to Tywin’s room. There, Tyrion found Shae, his former lover who testified against him, and killed her. After that, Tyrion found Tywin on the toilet, and finished him off with a crossbow decorated with gold.

Cersei sending Bronn with that same crossbow is a reminder of Tyrion’s betrayal of the Lannister family. She blames Tyrion for the deaths of her children–since Joffrey’s death, she’s maintained that Tyrion was responsible, but even learning from Jaime that Lady Olenna Tyrell (Diana Rigg) poisoned her son hasn’t changed her mind. She also blames him for the deaths of Myrcella (Nell Tiger Free) and Tommen–as Cersei said in Season 7, when Tyrion killed Tywin, it left the Lannisters exposed.

“Do you have any idea what you did when you fired that crossbow?” Cersei asks Tyrion. “You left us open. You laid us bare for the vultures and the vultures came and tore us apart. You may not have killed Joffrey, but you killed Myrcella, you killed Tommen. No one would have touched them if Father was here–no one would have dared.”

Making sure that the same crossbow Tyrion used to kill Tywin is used against him is exactly the kind of poetic message-sending Cersei loves. Like playing “The Rains of Castamere,” it’s a power move that builds her reputation, shows her spite for her enemies, and strikes fear in others. The question now is whether Bronn will actually try to kill his two former employers.